


Nothing is Forever

by Bright00



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Everything Hurts, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Sorry, It all goes to shit, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Malcolm Bright Whump, My First Work in This Fandom, My first work ever actually, Prison, transfer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:53:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23834920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bright00/pseuds/Bright00
Summary: Takes place after 1x19. Malcolm spends six days in prison on the assumption that he murdered the guard in the hospital but what happens after his release and he decides that it’s time for some life changes?
Comments: 10
Kudos: 46





	1. Parallels

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Please bear with me for this chapter as this is my first ever work and I'm trying to find a writing style!

The booking process hadn’t been kind to Malcolm, the first thing they had him do was change from his black long-sleeve shirt and pants into a tan prison uniform and as soon as he finished pulling the baggy top over his head his hands were once again shackled to each other, each wrist compressed by unyielding steel. He was then pushed to a small, brightly lit room that held just a guard, a photographer, and a little black sign that branded the name ‘Whitly’ right below a serial number. 

Malcolm had almost forgotten that he had never officially changed his last name to the alias that he goes by. The sight of the sign brought an overwhelming amount of emotions that he hadn’t felt together in years. He felt rage, sadness, guilt, and a measure of shame that felt like it was burning a hole through the middle of his chest. 

He was going to spend the rest of his life just like his father, trapped in a cell for the rest of eternity, rotting away, slowly withering until all that was left of them was their reputations - murders.

The realization made him stop right in his tracks, his whole body felt heavier and he only started moving once one of the guards shoved him toward the stool that sat in front of the camera, he couldn’t even hear what they were telling him to do as everything was ringing and he had never been more grateful to sit down in his life as passing out in a prison definitely wasn’t on his bucket list. The sign was hung around his neck and the mugshots were taken with the flash making little stars appear in his vision. 

He was escorted through a steel door and down a long corridor and into yet another room with its white lights starting to cause a pounding headache that felt like it was right behind his eyes. 

The room only had an exam table that he was ushered to and told to sit, so he did, the white paper crunched beneath his weight and one of the men that had been leading him mentioned something about an examination but Malcolm wasn’t paying attention, he was only focused on trying to stop the ringing in his ears. The guards exited the room through the same door they entered through and Malcolm was left alone, trapped in four concrete walls.

Just the thought of an exam made his heart race and his face hot. There was a reason that Malcolm liked to wear long sleeves and it wasn’t for comfort. There were three thin lines on the inside of his left wrist white and faded from almost 16 years ago. They were almost so faded that you couldn’t see them if you weren’t looking for them but the ones that were further up his arm, just below the inside of his elbow and just as pink as the scar from when Watkins stabbed him. 

He was only alone for no longer than two minutes and the hole in his chest grew as he remembered Gil’s reaction when he saw the three razor-made grooves on the inside of his wrist. His mother cried for him and knocked back more drinks than usual and Ainsley was only 10 then but that didn’t stop her from asking him endless questions. The stream of memories was only interrupted when he heard the door open again and he found his ears quiet. 

“Malcolm Whitly we’re going to conduct an examination for any marks that would correlate with the murder of Eddie.” The statement sounded as if the man was reading a script with the only personal aspect of it was an all too familiar sigh accompanied the end of the sentence that only one person in his life did. Gil. 

Malcolm looked up with eyes that now shone a color closer to a royal blue than their signature electric color. His eyes fell upon the other two people accompanying the Luitenant, Edrisa, and Dani. As he looked back at the floor he couldn’t help but wonder why JT wasn’t there. Maybe he couldn’t stand to be in a room with someone who he believed killed someone, finally living up to the family name. 

“Uhm, okay we’ll be starting the exam with observing the head and neck, and then we’ll move to the arms of the subject Malcolm Whitly.” His last name was said in almost a whisper as she spoke into the recorder that was almost exclusively used at the morgue as if Edrisa was afraid that saying it would summon some sort of curse.

The hole continued its evergrowing consumption of his chest.

The first half of the exam passed in a blur, it was filled with having to turn all different ways on the exam table so that Edrisa could ensure that she was searching everywhere that Eddie could’ve reached to get Malcolm’s DNA under his nails.

“The subjects head and neck are clear from any injuries that could be linked to the murder. We are now moving on to examine the arms.” The tension in her voice reflecting the just as tight tension in the room, making the air feel a little too dense to breathe properly. 

Malcolm had been watching everyone’s reactions through his peripheral vision which only gave him a view of their bottom halves as he was quite keen on keeping his head down but was just as telling as if he was able to see their whole bodies. Edrisa had been rolling a small flashlight that she was using for the exam in her fingers which though he couldn’t see it he could hear it as the small chain at the end collided with the rest of its metal frame. Dani had her hands in the pockets of her well-worn leather jacket but he could still see that she was fidgeting with something. Gil had been folding and unfolding the same piece of paper since he came into the room but had stopped as soon as Edrisa started the second exam. He knew what she would find as soon as she started looking at the inside of his arms and knew that it was best for him to save himself some pain and keep his eyes on the grey concrete below them.

“There’s nothing on the top of the subject’s arms that would indicate that he had anything to do with the crime.” This statement sounded more hopeful than the previous ones and was probably the most hopeful he’d heard anyone since he arrived in the prison. 

“Were now starting the last part of the exam on the forearm, inner elbow, and the inner upper arm.” 

Malcolm was now holding his breath, almost hoping that he would just pass out. He heard a small gasp from Dani and an “Oh” that was barely audible from Edrisa. 

There was a pause that felt like minutes for Malcolm but in reality, it was probably just a moment before Edrisa spoke, continuing the audio for the exam.

“There are three scars from lacerations made around fifteen years ago based on the color on the inside of the left wrist and three more about an inch and a half below the inner elbow from around-” She stopped as soon as she came up with the estimated time frame. 

His head was hung and shaking ever so slightly as if he hoped that it would clear their faces from his mind. He couldn’t stop imagining what their faces looked like. Gil’s was probably the same as when he found out the first time, a shadow of sorrow and turmoil splayed across his features. Dani’s eyes probably had the same despondent look as they did at the funeral convention. He imagined Edrisa’s face having an umbra of perplexity as she put the pieces of the puzzle together. 

“How old are they?” Gil’s voice sounded almost exactly as it did 16 years ago, filling the emptiness in the room with the question that they needed to be answered but didn’t want to know. 

“5 months” The sound was foreign to all ears in the room, it was coated in shame and dripping with sorrow as Malcolm raised his head only to look at the blank wall in front of him, not looking his team in the eyes in fear that he would be met with the same faces that had insisted on burning themselves onto the inside of his eyelids and refusing to leave.

Edrisa slowly wrote something on the clipboard that she carried in with her and when she was done she spoke her findings into her recording device and then stopping it. 

“There is no physical evidence on the subject that would imply that he killed the victim.”

Malcolm wanted nothing more than to explain to them that he didn’t do it as an act of permanent solution but to just feel some sort of relief. He was tired of having things he couldn’t control like car roofs, his father’s old camping buddy, or even his own subconscious hurt him. It was an act of control.  
Edrisa then moved to the door and knocked, letting the guards outside know that they were ready to go. When the door was opened she turned to give Malcolm a small smile and then left. Dani walked towards the exit only to stop when she heard Malcolm call her name.

“You know I didn’t do this right?” A pleading undertone in his call and he was met with brown eyes gleaming with tears that threatened to roll onto her cheeks if she did so much as blink.

“There’s a lot of evidence, Malcolm.” She tried to choose her words wisely so that she wouldn’t really be answering his question because if she was being honest, she didn’t know what to believe.

“And because it’s in the family right? Apparently it was bound to happen at some point.” Malcolm regurgitated the words he overheard a guard say in passing to one of the officers that were guiding him through the agnate hallways. 

“Kid, you know that’s not true,” Gil said and Malcolm could still hear the trace of emotion in his tone.

“The second word you said when you came in was ‘Whitly’ so it is kind of true. Or was it some spot the difference game? One’s a serial killer and the other is apparently a murderer. Like father like son right?” Both Dani and Gil knew that he didn’t mean what he was saying and he was stressed and not to mention a bit tipsy from before the arrest but the words still stung in the same way a slap would.

“Alright kid, I’ll give you some space.” And just like that, they left and the same two guards from before entered who grabbed him and took him out the room.

Malcolm was then guided through the hallways and caught a glance at a reflection of himself in the glass pane of a door. He looked just like his father.

He spent the rest of the night stuck in a cell and alone with the reminder that he was _Malcolm Whitly._


	2. Reluctant Assent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for the feedback y'all left on the last chapter, it is very much appreciated!

Comprised of halls that you could wander for hours and never tell if you were really going anywhere and so many people around you adorning the same attire that if there was ever a crowd you could easily get lost in it if you weren’t paying close enough attention, prison was exactly as Malcolm had imagined it.

He was used to taking his meds in the privacy of his own apartment and now he was watched by two guards and a pharmacist as he shot back the cocktail of pills given to him in a small paper cup. After getting used to sitting at a table with his team to catch murders, he now sat at the lunch tables with men convicted of violent crimes. The shock of it all made Malcolm feel as if he was in some twisted dream where everything he knew was replaced with the complete opposite.

He made sure that one of the first things he did was set up his list of visitors which was limited to five people and only one five minute visit per day. Mother and Gil visited him every other day while Ainsley came by when she could bribe her mother to give up her visitation to let her go. 

His mother visited for the first time the morning after his arrest and easily stood out from the other visitors as she showed up in a different designer dress accompanied by an expensive handbag.

“Good morning dear, I’ve heard you had an interesting night.” Spoken in a tone to cheery to be said in a prison but it was almost like a breath of fresh air for Malcolm.

“One could definitely call it that,” he responded as he slid his hand down the side of his face and rested his head on it.

“It doesn’t look like you even shut your eyes last night, did you even sleep?” His mother asked with concern laced into her words as she studied her son who had dark circles forming underneath his eyes.

“I didn’t and it’s not like stress is necessarily something that put you to sleep.” There was no use in lying about it, it wouldn’t do either of them any good.

“Well, I suggest that you find a fix to that since we don’t know how long your stay will be and we don’t know how short… or long it’ll be.” The last part of her sentence just the slightest edge of a tone that he hadn’t heard in his Mother’s voice in a long time. Fear.

“Don’t worry about me too much, I’ll figure it out.” There was truth behind that sentence too. He was going to figure it out. _Eventually._

“I’ve been told somethings but I want to hear the truth from you. Did you kill that security guard that was at your father’s cell, Ethan, Edward, Eduardo, whatever his name was?” She said it in the same tone that she had to use when she questioning a young Ainsley if she knew who got into her makeup. She already knew the answer.

“No.” The simple answer was acknowledged by a sigh of affirmation from the other end of the receivers that they both held to their heads.

Then a voice that surprised the two of them who were both feeling varying levels of recognition and comfort. 

“Whitly, time’s up.” It was one of the guards in charge of keeping the times of all visits to five minutes and he hit a kill switch generating a humming noise in the phones, silencing the parting words they both tried to tell each other. 

Malcolm was grabbed from the stool he had been sitting on and led back to his cell where he spent the next few hours reading a copy of _The Bell Jar_ by Sylvia Plath that was placed on his bed while he was away. 

Gil’s visit took place the following day and as Malcolm was being led back to the visitation room his nerves were growing with every step and sprouting even more when he entered the room and saw Gil sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the glass. 

As he sat on the same cold stool as he did the day before and he received a smile from the man which almost instantly melted his fears. Gil was the first to pick up the receiver and in turn, was the first to speak. 

“Hey kid, how are you holding up?” He asked with a palpable amount of concern in his voice.

“Gil, listen, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean what I said in the exam room, I was stressed and not to mention a bit drunk if I’m being honest.” The words spilled out faster than he hoped they would and seemed to surprise Gil as he raised his eyebrows in response.

“Malcolm, it’s okay. Really, it is. I know that us referring to you with your father’s last name was hard but we had to, legally, since everything was recorded and it is still your legal name. I was going to tell you while we were there but you already seemed worked up enough as it was and I didn’t want to cause a heart attack.” He chuckled to himself at the last part and Malcolm let out a relieved sigh.

They weren’t calling him “Malcolm Whitly” because they thought he was a killer, but because it was in fact, still his legal name. Just knowing that made him feel ten times better than how he felt before the visit. 

“Well that cleared a lot up,” Bright laughed, “I thought that you believed that I killed that guy.” After he said that he carefully examined Gil’s face in case there was any sign that he did believe that but there were none.

“Speaking of that, we made some finds on the case which I technically can’t tell you since you’re not with the NYPD anymore...” there was a few seconds of silence between them as they looked at each other through the thick glass window and Malcolm gave him a small head nod encouraging him to continue. “The time of death is fifteen minutes after cameras and security saw you leave his room and since he died from suffocation meaning that you would _have_ to be in the room where it happened. So either you got into his room without any camera or guard seeing you or-”

“It was planted and I didn’t do it” He interrupts in disbelief, finishing Gil’s sentence for him. “Well you know Mother took me to a rock climbing gym when I was younger.” The joke insinuating that he climbed the outside of the building which made Gil smile even though it was a train wreck of a joke considering that Malcolm was already in prison.

“Yeah right kid, I bet that even if you went to a climbing gym a day before you wouldn’t be able to climb five stories.” He playfully retorted making the both of them laugh and they spent the last two minutes of their time discussing the case before the same buzz filled Malcolm’s ears and the same guard from the previous day told him his time was up and another led him back to his cell.

The visits were always the best parts of his days and not to mention it was really the only times he used his vocal cords during the days and the only way Malcolm was able to keep track of the days as when he spent nearly all of his time locked away in his six by eight cell where he tried to keep a tight leash on what memories and possibilities his mind explored but sometimes his subconscious outran him and went wherever it wanted to go, no matter how dark it was which he was sure was detrimental to his mental health but it wasn’t like he was going back to work anytime soon. The only thing was that his new pastime heightened the intensity of his night terrors and during his second night his screams awoke several other prisoners in the wing and one responded with his own yell.

“Shut the fuck up or else I’ll slaughter your bitchass like I did the other dude!” The booming voice ricocheted off the concrete walls and had him questioning if the threat had any truth to it but definitely wasn’t something Malcolm wanted to test, especially considering that he was in the high-security wing of the prison meaning everyone around him was here because of violent crimes. 

And just like that Malcolm became a nap person for the rest of his stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter as it's probably going to be the lightest chapter of this seven-part series!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again! I hope you enjoyed it and if you didn't please let me know how I can improve as I love getting feedback!


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